Every new technology arrives with a promise baked into its design — and that promise quietly reshapes what we think we need. The sociologist Thorstein Veblen noticed this over a century ago: tools don't just solve existing problems, they manufacture new desires we didn't have before the tool existed. The smartphone didn't satisfy a pre-existing hunger for constant connectivity; it created that hunger, and then deepened it daily. This matters for anyone building or adopting technology in business — because the question worth asking isn't 'does this solve a problem?' but 'what new problem will people discover they have once this exists?' That second question is harder, slower, and far more valuable to sit with.

What did you want before a technology you rely on daily gave you the ability to want it?

Drawing from Institutional Economics / Social Theory — Thorstein Veblen